Eddington Skewers COVID Hypocrisy and Small-Town Madness
Eddington's lacerating social satire about a town torn apart by pandemic paranoia takes a violent turn without losing the plot.
Returning to the historically tense spring of 2020, Eddington, from writer-director Ari Aster, lands in a strangely familiar Twilight Zone of an America emerging from lockdowns, still gripped by fear and confusion over the pandemic, and roiling with anger over racial injustice.
It’s late May in the dusty desert town of Eddington, New Mexico, and the distancing, caution, and paranoia, the fights over protocols and masks worn below the nose, have seemingly pushed folks here to their breaking point. Amidst the eerie calm of mostly empty streets, the atmosphere crackles with the potential for catastrophe.
The film initially eases that tension through humor, dark and acerbic and often really funny, centered around the brewing feud between the town’s COVID protocol-supporting Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) and mask-averse Sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix).
An asthmatic with good reason for not wanting to mask up, Sheriff Joe disagrees with all the state-wide mandates and with practically any measures taken to curb the spread of the virus. So he doesn’t enforce them, even allowing a raving, unmasked, and coughing vagrant to run rampant all over Eddington.
“There’s no COVID here,” Sheriff Joe constantly assures everyone. If you say so, Sheriff.
Advocates on every side of the debate get a taste of the stinging satire, from the hydroxychloroquine pushers to the mask policers. Aster appears to take particular pleasure in poking fun at the moral superiority of maskers — exemplified by a scene of masked patrons at a drugstore applauding at an unmasked man being tossed out.
Those loudest in expressing their moral superiority, the film repeatedly suggests (not inaccurately), are often the most insincere. But what about the true believers? Aster also takes aim at the cultists and conspiracy theorists thriving in this moment of mass uncertainty.
Sheriff Joe’s wife Louise (Emma Stone), consumed by her arts and crafts projects, is almost all out of patience with her mom Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell), a conspiracy-addled kook who always has a YouTube video or Facebook post to shove in Louise’s face.
What Joe doesn’t see is that the videos and posts are actually making a dent on his darling Louise. She might be losing her grip on reality, too, falling under the spell of oddball YouTube evangelist Vernon (Austin Butler).
Everyone in Eddington is locked in their own bubble, or descending into madness and delusion, it seems. Every adult, that is — the teens of the town are all wrapped up in social justice. A great recurring joke here is that, while Sheriff Joe and Mayor Ted square off over mask mandates, Ted’s son Eric (Matt Gomez Hidaka) and his peers have moved beyond that fight.
They’re all hyped up about BLM and protesting the killings of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and, then, smack dab in the middle of our story, George Floyd. They’re also engaged in typical teenage romance and rebellion, many of them no more sincere about their activism than the grownups are about their moral righteousness.
Eric’s friend and rival Brian (Cameron Mann) adopts the pose of a staunch anti-racist just to impress cute activist Sarah (Amélie Hoeferle). Radicalizing himself, he mainlines protest videos to pick up the lingo, but in every instance, he sounds ridiculous trying to speak for the cause.
Among its many political jabs, the film implies there’s no authentic way for a so-called privileged white person to engage with anti-racism. That’s debatable, as is much of the movie’s politics.
Blending Americana with potent critique, Eddington offers plenty to like and plenty to disagree with, which doesn’t diminish the effective, assured filmmaking and committed performances.
Phoenix is a compellingly flawed protagonist, and Pascal an accordingly imperfect foil, a “good guy” politician who thrives in performing that role. Stone is fine, if a bit mannered, as unraveling Louise, and Butler is amusing, if also stilted, in his brief, showy appearance as magnetic guru Vernon.
O’Connell, portraying ranting mother-in-law Dawn, really takes the cake, though, presenting an uncanny image of a functional and sane-looking person who’s gone batshit crazy. Dawn has fallen down the rabbit hole and is desperately trying to yank Louise and Joe down there with her.
Frighteningly believable, and funny as hell, Dawn fans the flames of war between Joe and Ted. Their ego-driven conflict grows increasingly petty, as tensions build all over Eddington and civil behavior breaks down, finally erupting in shocking violence, rendered with blunt force by the Hereditary filmmaker.
We’re talking shotgun blasts and knives to the skull — not a pretty picture of a small town past its breaking point, but a powerfully persuasive picture of a time we might all look back on someday as the moment that broke us.
Eddington (★★★★☆) is rated R and is playing in theaters nationwide. Visit www.fandango.com.
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